Have you seen that commercial for the 2010 Cadillac SRX? It’s an awesome car, yeah? The car-and commercial-are great of course, but the element that caught my attention wasn’t the awesome cinematography that made me want to find that white tunnel with its cool futuristic lighting, or the fact that the Cadillac of Crossovers was reimagined, reinspired and reinvigorated to reignite the soul. Oh no…what caught my attention was the last ten or so seconds of the ad that ended the commercial with a catchy beat and intriguing vocals (“vocals” is debatable but ‘weird sounds’ just doesn’t sound very nice).

So I did some research.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have to dig too deep! The song in question is “1901″ from a French band called Phoenix. My stars must REALLY have been aligned this week because a rerun on Jimmy Fallon this week happened to be hosting Phoenix as its musical guest (ugh, no I do not regularly stay up to watch Jimmy Fallon-it was pure luck!).

Here’s the skinny: As aforementioned, Phoenix is a French band that came together more than a decade ago in Versaille, France. Phoenix consists of guitarists Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai, bassist Deck D’Arcy and frontman Thomas Mars. [Interesting tidbit: Thomas Mars had a child with film director Sofia Coppola!]  

They released their debut album United in 2000, followed by Alphabetical in 2004, Live! Thirty Days Ago in 2005 and It’s Never Been Like That in 2006.  Their recent album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was released in May of this year and smashed into the Billboard Top 40 in its first week. The band has appeared on Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brien, SNL and more.

If you kept up with this year’s grammy nominations (released this past Thursday), Phoenix received a nomination for album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix in the pop album of the year category. Phoenix is currently touring in the US before heading to Canada, Australia and Europe.

1. “Lisztomania” 
2. “1901“
3. “Fences”
4. “Love Like a Sunset, Pt. 1″
5. “Love Like a Sunset, Pt. 2″
6. “Lasso” 
7. “Rome”
8. “Countdown” 
9. “Girlfriend”
10. “Armistice”

In my opinion, Phoenix could be the Next Big Thing. Check out this up-and-coming band and let me know what you think!